August 18, 2008

I had the privilege of teaching the Sunbeam class off the cuff yesterday. I love Primary. I really do. Senior Primary is kind of annoying, especially when you get to the older kids, but those little kids in Junior Primary crack me up.

When we got into the room all of the kids were semi out of control. My first instinct was to give them food, of which I had none. Gum should work, I thought. I asked to no one in particular amidst the chaos, "Who likes gum?" The room went silent and I had their undivided attention. I looked at them as seriously as I could and told them that they could have a piece of gum as long as the didn't talk during the lesson. Everybody agreed.

I was surprised how well the gum worked. Everybody sat there listening without a word until I pulled up a picture of Joseph-- the one who who got his coat of many colors stolen by his brothers and then thrown into the pit and then sold into Egypt-- yeah, that one. In this picture Joseph wasn't wearing a shirt. One girl called out, "Look at his boobies!" It kind of took me off guard and I giggled. (Come on, who doesn't think the word "boobies" is funny, especially coming from a little kid's mouth?) Then I completely ignored her, hoping her 3-yr-old mind would grab hold of some other inappropriate or random thought. But she said it again, and again. Worried that some parent in the hall would get a whiff of the dirty word and turn me into the Primary President, I said kind of in a whisper, "Let's stop talking about boobies. Boys don't have boobies, anyway." That shut the one girl up, but another girl chimed in, "Yeah, they just have nipples." Oh my! I wasn't sure what was worse-- boobies or nipples.

Thank goodness for Petie. His mind was obviously elsewhere and began to tell of a time when a mosquito bit him and left a bug bite. Petie, I will love you and that mosquito forever. The topic of breasts did not come up again.